Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres eBook

For he had learned no other thing
Than to tumble, dance and spring:
Leaping and vaulting, that he knew,
But nothing better could he do.
He could not say his prayers by rote;
Not “Pater noster”, not a note,
Not “Ave Mary,” nor the creed;
Nothing to help his soul in need.

Tormented by the sense of his uselessness to the society
whose bread he ate without giving a return in service,
and afraid of being expelled as a useless member,
one day while the bells were calling to mass he hid
in the crypt, and in despair began to soliloquize
before the Virgin’s altar, at the same spot,
one hopes, where the Virgin had shown herself, or
might have shown herself, in her infinite bounty,
to Saint Bernard, a hundred years before:—­

“Ha!” said he, “how I am ashamed!
To sing his part goes now each priest,
And I stand here, a tethered beast,
Who nothing do but browse and feed
And waste the food that others need.
Shall I say nothing, and stand still?
No! by God’s mother, but I will!
She shall not think me here for naught;
At least I’ll do what I’ve been
taught!
At least I’ll serve in my own way
God’s mother in her church to-day.
The others serve to pray and sing;
I will serve to leap and spring.”